The Man Who Liked Art
by mychemicalbitchbot
Summary: Alec just wants to be art, just wants the special attention of the caramel-smiled man.


**I don't know where this came from. I have a party in 4 hours and I'm trying to kill time. I have ch. 4 of BLIND written now it just needs to be beta'd. Enjoy this until I can get that up.**

You liked art. You got bored with it, so temperamental, but you still liked it. You always figured you could go back and look at it again if you needed to, why spend so much time staring at some lumps of clay, or oils on canvas? They were just bursts of color, the balance of science and overemphasized emotion. You were never into emotion that was overpowering. You liked the subtle stuff, the second strike. You liked the tsunami that came after the earthquake, preferred the second wave to the first.

You didn't want anything to do with love, nothing was supposed to touch you in immediate ways. You weren't supposed to be nice, you tried hard not to be. But you were, it'd seep into your face and your voice would warm up just a little. It wasn't like putting caramel in the microwave, a quick thing that bubbled and tried desperately to get free—no, it was more reserved. It was the slow-paced drip of the room-temperature sweet goo into the bottom of the flan dish.

You were always like that—reserved, but complicated. You helped people for a living, that was funny, and made quite the buck at it, too. You were good at it, though you denied liking it. You did, though. You liked helping them, and draining their bank accounts while at it. It gave you that slow, caramel smile.

I thought that that smile could last forever, and it would, it would be there long after I died. You'd still be playing them all, shuffling the deck and dealing everyone a lifeline or a death sentence. I'm still not sure which I got, though I think maybe both. Maybe you hadn't rigged the deck, for once, with my draw. Maybe you were just seeing where the deck would land you, land me.

Me. I was just a prostitute who had no choice but to give up on life. You were just someone who liked art, someone who used me just like all of the other johns. But it was okay, that was what I was there for. I had to support my siblings the best I could, and it didn't always hurt. Not when I was high, on whatever the Brothers and Sisters sold to me. It made it easier. You thought it made me a sort of art that could only be viewed for a little while, and you watched me burn my life away. You helped me, with fists and wild green-gold eyes that I would wake up screaming to. If I ever slept, you were the only thing that plagued the otherwise abuse-filled dreams. You became a constant. I don't know exactly how, you weren't my only customer. But you were the only one I was actually attracted to, maybe that was it.

I let you hit me. I protested, a bit, but you payed well and so I let it continue. I just had to buy a little bit more concealer than I usually did, and it was achy business as usual. I think I started spending more on drugs, too, but I didn't really notice at the time. What was there to notice? I was just a prostitute, supporting my siblings. I told you that, once, when you asked me why I did what I did. Why I went there. You were always too mushy after sex, or after hitting me blue. Sometimes you'd just hit, but pay me like it was sex anyway. I wasn't sure which I preferred.

You never took drugs. I thought it was funny enough, with all that you did. You wouldn't touch a bottle of alcohol unless there was something particularly stressful going on, you usually just came to me more when that happened, and no matter what was in my small bag you never asked for any. I offered, once. You turned me down. You said that you didn't want to turn out like me.

I suppose I should have been offended, but I wasn't. We just continued on, for a while. Then you told me you'd do something for me, if I'd do something for you. You promised to take care of my siblings, help them out if they ever needed anything. You smiled, that almost-warm smile, and I said I'd do anything. As long as they were alive and well. You could probably give them more than I would ever have been able to.

You asked me, in return, to die. At first I was shocked, but as you explained, it made more sense. You wanted to kill me, but you didn't want to have to deal with your conscience saying that you killed someone in cold blood. You didn't want to say to yourself that it was murder.

I let you do it, after a minute of consideration where nothing actually went on in my mind. You didn't say when you were going to do it, of course not. When you finally did it, I wasn't all that surprised.

You'd taken me down to the river, and had wasted little time taking off my thin clothes. You were eager, I could tell. You were rough, but it wasn't like I was very tight anymore, or that I'd never been taken unprepared before. I'd been raped my fair share of times, same as most of the others. Sometimes they'd want us to play, or sometimes they'd find us in an alley and we wouldn't get paid because we were screaming and crying because we didn't want it if there were no green bills involved. After a while, it became normalish, something that happened every few months.

You were close to coming, so was I, when you pulled the blade out of your dark jacket pocket. I wasn't surprised you were wearing it, clients rarely got completely naked. I felt fear flash through me, then a slight pain that was drowned out with counteractive hormones, whatever they were, I'd never finished school. I think my body let go and I came, as I died. I don't know. Then you came, your entire front covered in my blood, staining your body. You probably got HIV.

I thought I'd got the best of that deal, I really did. I didn't realize that you'd looked up my siblings under the name 'Lightwood' and they'd never existed at all. I didn't realize that my cause for this abuse wasn't to help anybody, it had just been one night out of the house to get away from my parents who Weren't Okay With Me Being Gay that had led to rape to Angel Dust to whatever I could get to prostitution.

I didn't realize that I'd been used to sexual abuse long before I became a prostitute. That those hands I had dreamed about belonged to my neighbors, a smiling boy with golden hair and his brother, taller, darker and sinister enough to belong comfortably in a Slasher. I didn't realize that you'd used me completely, that you had taken advantage of my complete inability to function as human because of all the things I'd seen, all the times I'd messed myself up, warped everything up with so many psychotics and narcotics. I didn't realize that LSD could lead to being so fucking screwed up permanently.

But at least I thought I was somewhere near happy when you murdered me. I was nowhere near sane enough to be making decisions about my life, and you knew it. You'd used me. But, I got to be art, just for a second. As I died, to you, I was true art.

That made me so, so happy. You were the man who liked art.


End file.
